@nazokiyoubinbou @Viss Exactly
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@aburka @Viss This is kind of a well-known thing among experienced community moderators already, though - it's always just a handful of people inciting shit and riling up everyone else. Even in the context of school bullying, it's the same thing - a few bullies and a pile of bystanders.
Where it often goes wrong in practice is that people are afraid to moderate decisively against such people because those people tend to be very good at walking lines, and with a prevailing ideology of "you can't ban someone unless they are clearly breaking a defined rule".... well, you can see where this is going.
Pretty much the only working defense against this sort of toxicity is moderating subjectively for community health rather than legalistically, and just not enough places are willing to do that today. -
@woe2you @aburka @Viss I do actually think there is value in having more rules than that - though their purpose would be to communicate expectations (both in terms of how to behave and what can be expected from others), rather than to be an exhaustive list of grounds for moderator action, and that should be made clear ("moderator has the last word"). That approach to rules is also how pre-internet communities have historically worked.
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@ifixcoinops @joepie91 @aburka @Viss RPS policy was, I paraphrase, no warnings just ban them. checking comments and banning dickheads is a valid worktime activity
The one time I went against my better judgement and warned someone (they were making a valid criticism of the site, but channelling it into an attack on one young writer with obviously zero influence over management decisions), they kept up with the shit so it was just a waste of energy and I had to ban them anyway
@sinvega @ifixcoinops @aburka @Viss I have actually had a fair few cases in moderation where someone did learn from a warning, or even multiple warnings, and improved for the better over time.
But crucially, if someone actively pushed back on a warning - trying to treat it as some severe punishment, questioning the moderator's legitimacy, trivializing what they did, making bigoted comments, that sort of thing - in basically 100% of cases where that happened, they ended up being banned after repeated incidents, and they never learned.
"Does someone accept direct feedback on their behaviour, even if they disagree" is, in my experience, the single most reliable indicator for whether they can participate in a community in a healthy way.
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@woe2you @aburka @Viss I do actually think there is value in having more rules than that - though their purpose would be to communicate expectations (both in terms of how to behave and what can be expected from others), rather than to be an exhaustive list of grounds for moderator action, and that should be made clear ("moderator has the last word"). That approach to rules is also how pre-internet communities have historically worked.
@joepie91 @aburka @Viss My expectation is that people don't be a dick, and if vagueness makes them err on the side of caution so much the better. I'm not there to teach them things they should have learned by the age of 6. If they grew up in the woods raised by wild animals that's tragic for them, but I see no reason why my sympathy should extend to letting it be tragic for everyone else.
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@ifixcoinops @sinvega @aburka @Viss Yeah... one of the things I learned over time, but that nobody ever accepts when I try to explain it to them, is that timed mutes/bans/etc. are just completely useless. Time passing doesn't affect the way someone engages with others, so you're just giving a second opportunity to do the same thing again.
Nowadays all of my bans are "permanent until you give me reason to believe that you've changed", and that works so, so much better. Sometimes it means unbanning someone a few days later, sometimes it means never unbanning them, and in a few cases someone has actually reached out years later reflecting on what happened and what they'd learned, and gotten unbanned that way.
And it's still painful and frustrating every time I see some community trying to implement the 'escalation ladder' of warning, short tempban, long tempban, permaban - because it's never going to work but nobody who implements this will believe you if you tell them that...
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@joepie91 @aburka @Viss My expectation is that people don't be a dick, and if vagueness makes them err on the side of caution so much the better. I'm not there to teach them things they should have learned by the age of 6. If they grew up in the woods raised by wild animals that's tragic for them, but I see no reason why my sympathy should extend to letting it be tragic for everyone else.
@woe2you @aburka @Viss This unfortunately ends up excluding a lot of neurospicy people (in addition to bridging badly between different cultural backgrounds), so it's not an approach I would recommend for any place that isn't just people you know personally. Especially since it doesn't cost much to accommodate for it.
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@etherdiver this sounds very familiar, eh?
@jepyang 100%
Not that everyone is remotely equipped to be a successful mod, but I do think that if people spent a year or so modding a space, their feelings on moderation would definitely change pretty radically!
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@aburka @Viss This is kind of a well-known thing among experienced community moderators already, though - it's always just a handful of people inciting shit and riling up everyone else. Even in the context of school bullying, it's the same thing - a few bullies and a pile of bystanders.
Where it often goes wrong in practice is that people are afraid to moderate decisively against such people because those people tend to be very good at walking lines, and with a prevailing ideology of "you can't ban someone unless they are clearly breaking a defined rule".... well, you can see where this is going.
Pretty much the only working defense against this sort of toxicity is moderating subjectively for community health rather than legalistically, and just not enough places are willing to do that today.@joepie91 @aburka @Viss I've observed in physical space bullying that there is a third type of person, who cares about being liked, but also is drawn to what they mistakenly perceive as power. They become the bullies' hangers-on without pushing boundaries so far they feel like they've become entirely unlikable to bystanders who are not targeted by the bullies but dislike their behavior anyway. (There may or may not be a political movement built on a shaky coalition of these sorts. And I may or may not have thought about this a lot in the context of a relative I understand a little too well.)
Online those people are the mealymouthed enablers. "Well, they do make an interesting point..." isn't enough to get them banned. When the bullies are banned they back off and won't make trouble on their own, but as soon as a new bully arrives they start supporting the behavior again.
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@Viss Doctor.
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@aburka @Viss This is kind of a well-known thing among experienced community moderators already, though - it's always just a handful of people inciting shit and riling up everyone else. Even in the context of school bullying, it's the same thing - a few bullies and a pile of bystanders.
Where it often goes wrong in practice is that people are afraid to moderate decisively against such people because those people tend to be very good at walking lines, and with a prevailing ideology of "you can't ban someone unless they are clearly breaking a defined rule".... well, you can see where this is going.
Pretty much the only working defense against this sort of toxicity is moderating subjectively for community health rather than legalistically, and just not enough places are willing to do that today.@joepie91 @aburka @Viss family therapist Patrick teahan writes: "toxic families, friend circles, and work environments tend to dance around the most toxic person." Usually because that person makes it incredibly unpleasant for anyone who challenges them.
Teahan continues: "Systems cater to the most toxic and...fuck that."
http://youtube.com/post/UgkxsKd0zxf2GgSsY-so7iunYKgOfcvc6Ftf?si=nKkaCMhiTd6Q2aW8
(When he refers to "systems", he's coming from the "family systems" perspective, which is very helpful in analyzing family dynamics, but also social dynamics in many kinds of groups.)
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@joepie91 @aburka @Viss I've observed in physical space bullying that there is a third type of person, who cares about being liked, but also is drawn to what they mistakenly perceive as power. They become the bullies' hangers-on without pushing boundaries so far they feel like they've become entirely unlikable to bystanders who are not targeted by the bullies but dislike their behavior anyway. (There may or may not be a political movement built on a shaky coalition of these sorts. And I may or may not have thought about this a lot in the context of a relative I understand a little too well.)
Online those people are the mealymouthed enablers. "Well, they do make an interesting point..." isn't enough to get them banned. When the bullies are banned they back off and won't make trouble on their own, but as soon as a new bully arrives they start supporting the behavior again.
@theotherbrook @aburka @Viss This is a very good point, and I could think of a few people in communities I've recently been involved in who would meet that description.
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@theotherbrook @aburka @Viss This is a very good point, and I could think of a few people in communities I've recently been involved in who would meet that description.
@joepie91 @theotherbrook @aburka a distinct handful come to mind from the infosec scene before the big twitter meltdown
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@Viss okey then! Time to go to bed 💤
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@Viss
Demo gorgon. Can you imagine if it was an actual gorgon? -
@Viss That is the most awesome pizza I've seen all year.
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@Viss nums
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@Viss "People, when I said Virtual Insanity, this is *not* what I meant!"
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@Viss why’d you have to drop that bomb on me
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@Viss they tried to warn us, but we were so distracted by the neo funk groove and their smooth moves to pay attention…
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@Viss uhm akshuly, Jamiroquai is the name of the whole band, and the weird hat guy who spent 22 hours a day, staring at our phones, is Jason Kay.